The present invention relates to refrigerated cabinet constructions and, in particular, to a support and retention liner gasket for mounting a plastic sheet food liner to the sheet metal cabinet of a refrigerator or freezer.
Currently, many refrigeration applications, such as refrigerators and freezers, employ a deep drawn plastic sheet food liner defining a food storage space that is mounted at a peripheral flange thereof to the frontal rim of the cabinet. This open ended cavity is opened and closed by means of a hinged door to gain access to the food storage space. Typically, such constructions employ a mounting arrangement wherein the food liner flange is snapped into a groove defined between the frontal rim and a parallel rearwardly spaced rim. The aforementioned rims have a frontal opening less than the dimension of the generally recentangular flange on the food liner. The rims also define an inwardly opening groove slightly larger than the dimensions of the flange.
Inasmuch as the side walls of such food liner are flexible, the long sides thereof may be inwardly flexed. This causes the short walls to bow slightly thereby presenting temporarily a lesser width than the opening and allowing the four corners thereof to be positioned adjacent the groove. When the walls are released the flange expands to its original shape and enters the groove so as to be fixedly captured therewithin. Spring clips are provided in the groove to resiliently mount the liner and take up clearance relationships which would otherwise exist.
While this normally produces a satisfactory mounting relationship, owing to the fact that the plastic sheet liner is extremely brittle, in an altogether unsatisfactory number of cases the inward flexing of the food liner causes the side walls thereof to crack. This can occur for instance when the flexing is excessive or material irregularities cause localized brittleness. In any event, these factors, which are difficult to control in mass production, result in increased production costs.